She had written an argumentative essay – if he couldn’t understand it, did that mean there was a problem with her chain of reasoning?
Sheng Xia lowered her voice to ask: “Zhang Shu… was my essay hard to understand?”
“Just say what you need to say, stop calling my name all the time.” Zhang Shu twirled his pen, glancing at her.
Sheng Xia: … Aren’t names meant to be called?
Though she thought this, she just nodded, “Oh, then about my essay…”
“It’s awesome,” he said.
His tone was dismissive, and he had just been a bit fierce, so Sheng Xia took the hint and didn’t pursue it further.
She looked so dejected with her head down that now Zhang Shu was confused – wasn’t praise good enough?
“Do you think I don’t understand?”
Sheng Xia had hope again: “So did you understand it?”
Zhang Shu was stumped by the question, “Haven’t seen pork but haven’t you seen pigs run?”
He might not be able to write like that, but didn’t he have any appreciation ability?
Sheng Xia’s expression was serious: “Then why did you write ‘don’t understand'”
Zhang Shu looked down at his comments – he had just been taking the easy way out.
Then he pulled his essay out from under her hand and saw her beautiful, neat handwriting – even writing comments she had to be so literary.
Fine. Reciprocity it is.
He crossed out the characters for “don’t understand but feels awesome” and wrote behind them: “Super awe-“
Before he could finish the last character, a soft warning came from beside him, “Write something more proper…”
Zhang Shu was impatient and gave her a sidelong glance. For once, the girl wasn’t trembling, her eyes only showing determination.
His pen paused, he crossed out the incomplete phrase and wrote: Excellent presentation, excellent writing, excellent argumentation, excellent logic, super excellent!!
Zhang Shu: “Satisfied now?”
Sheng Xia: …
After grading, Teacher Fu explained the materials. Sure enough, Zhang Shu’s thesis could only be considered third-rate, impossible to score high.
He didn’t seem to care much, just kept looking at Sheng Xia’s paper repeatedly, pondering something, so Sheng Xia had to use his paper to follow the lesson.
Only when class ended did he return her paper, then left with Hou Junqi.
Lu Youze came to collect the essays and specifically looked at Sheng Xia’s paper, “Sheng Xia, your handwriting is getting even better!”
“Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Zhang Shu didn’t write his name,” Lu Youze pulled out Zhang Shu’s essay and put it on the desk, “Write it for him.”
Lu Youze still had to collect papers from other groups.
“Oh, okay.” Sheng Xia wrote in the name field: Zhang Shu.
She handed it in.
…
After dinner, Sheng Xia went to the fruit shop as usual to buy a cup of cucumber juice.
It was just freshly squeezed cucumber with sugar water. The owner said it was a summer-limited offering. Sheng Xia liked this sweet, refreshing taste that helped beat the heat.
She walked slowly back to the classroom from the north gate with Xin Xiaohe.
They chatted about homework, exams, and Zhang Shu.
When they got to the “don’t understand but feels awesome” comment, Xin Xiaohe laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach, “If he wasn’t such a jerk, he’d probably appeal to both guys and girls. All the boys in our class like him – that mix of envy and admiration. Girls don’t dare approach him much, but there are still lots who like him. Girls from other classes go crazy talking about him.”
Sheng Xia was a bit curious: “Then why hasn’t he dated anyone? For his studies?”
Xin Xiaohe’s eyes immediately turned mysterious: “What studies? Have you seen him being devoted to studying?”
Sheng Xia shook her head. No.
After being Zhang Shu’s deskmate for two days, she had discovered that Zhang Shu was just extremely punctual – whether in morning, afternoon, or evening study hall, he arrived exactly on time, occasionally late, but never early.
However, according to Xin Xiaohe, he stayed late.
Though he was a day student, he would stay with the boarding students through the third evening study period, and if his homework wasn’t finished, he’d continue writing until the school’s lights-out bell rang.
“Looks lazy but quite self-disciplined,” Xin Xiaohe commented.
Sheng Xia sipped her cucumber juice, nodding, “Top students don’t get that good randomly.”
Xin Xiaohe hugged her hot water bottle and sighed: “But there are so many people who work harder than him – one percent talent can crush ninety-nine percent effort.”
“Coming back to the point,” Xin Xiaohe lowered her voice, “What’s the use of so many girls liking him? Everyone knows he’s been pursuing Chen Mengyao for years, from middle school until now, without success.”
Sheng Xia: “Why…”
Xin Xiaohe: “Because he’s poor? Well, not really poor, just very average, but that counts as poor to someone like Chen Mengyao. That girl says she’ll be a star in the future – who wants to date a poor boy? Those guys from the vocational school gave her bags and phones, I heard someone even gave her a car. But she looks down on new money types like that. Chen Mengyao wants to pursue young masters like Lu Youze who are rich and cultured…”
Sheng Xia asked: “You know her too?”